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It’s been really hot here for the last week or so with temperatures in the high 80s and low 90s. For those of you enduring the hot and humid East Coast summer this seems like nothing, and it is relatively, but we have no air conditioning at home. It can be very unpleasant without air conditioning. Of course in the evenings it drops down into the 60s and we get to cool off, but the days are HOT!

It takes getting hot to look this cool.

Give me a call sometime.

We had a nice warm day and decided that this would be a good opportunity for the boys to practice drinking from cups in a harmless way in the back yard. Check out the video.

Abba, you look silly and not only because you're wearing Jesse's hat.

Yes, it’s true! Noah decided that he’s going to walk. It was very sudden – one day he didn’t even want to stand on his own, the next day he’s walking. To be honest, I can’t blame him for taking almost two months longer than Jesse to learn how to walk. After all, he has an enormous head! Can you imagine trying to maintain your balance with that thing? The muscles that he had to develop had to have taken extra time. Jesse had it easy, especially because he’s almost two inches shorter than Noah too. Think about the leverage and all that physics stuff!

So now both of them are walking. The look like tiny, chubby, adorable zombies.

That’s right, I’m 40 years old now. I guess that should mean something to me. I did ask the Facebooks for ideas on how I could benefit from a mid-life crisis, but no one really came up with anything that made it seem worth the trouble. I decided to let it go and instead of worrying about the living that I hadn’t yet done, feel great about actually still being alive. I know that a lot of people live well past their 40s, but then a lot of people don’t.

While I’m feeling pretty good about all this, it seems that Rachel isn’t having any of it. She was counting on a mid-life crisis and if I’m not going to do it she’ll get the damn thing done herself! I mean, she’s now married to a guy who’s 40! How did that happen!? Where has her life gone!?

She’s been talking about getting a commuter car because the Element isn’t that fuel efficient and she didn’t like the manual transmission in the stop-and-go traffic. I figured, Toyota Yaris, Honda Fit, you know a commuter car. That didn’t happen. This did.

I know some of you will appreciate the irony of this considering what happened on my 39th Birthday. So there you have it, I turned 40 and Rachel got a Mini Clubman. And while technically I’m driving a mini too, mine’s a minivan. Hmmm, I think I’m finally beginning to feel that mid-life crises coming on.

For the past several weeks, Jesse and Noah have both been standing for a few seconds in place, but recently Jesse has been standing for longer periods of time. He would sort of take a step and then lunge at you, but just yesterday he started taking more steps and is pretty stable. I think it’s pretty safe to officially call this walking.

Noah may not have the walking down, but he’s started verbalizing many more sounds than Jesse and seems to be telling gibberish stories that almost certainly make sense to him. We’ll try to get a video of that next.

... well, except maybe for Noah

Here we all are in our new house in Seattle. We bought the boys their first pairs of shoes and Jesse thinks they are very tasty. Many thanks to April for the great photo.

We’re almost settled. We moved into our new house in West Seattle last Thursday and we’re mostly unpacked thanks to a huge amount of help from Rachel’s mom Susan and brother Alex. The first thing we did was get the boys’ room set up and tried to get them back into a routine. The move has been hard for them what with the 10 days in two hotels and now the new house. Both have been suffering from a cold and the end result is that they, and especially Jesse, are very clingy now. I’m sure it’s just a phase, but there is a lot of whining going on now in this new house of ours.

We’re learning our new surroundings and getting settled in. We have most everything unpacked, but not everything where we want it; and we haven’t hung any artwork on the walls yet. We have Washington plates on our cars now and once we get the documents together we’ll get drivers licenses and register to vote. We’ve both missed a lot of work and I’m happy to say that today we’re finally able to get back to our normal routine.

Our new address is:
4740 25th Ave. SW
Seattle, WA 98106

If you’re only following our blog and not Facebook, you might have missed that Rachel has a new job as the VP and GM of Bible Gateway. She was offered the job about a month ago and started last week. She’ll post more about the job when she can, but for now the main point is that the job is in Seattle. Meaning, we moved.

Yup, we moved. Again. The movers emptied our house in San Diego on Thursday and we flew up to Seattle yesterday. We’re staying in a hotel in Queen Ann for the next few days while we wait for our stuff to arrive. We have rented a nice house in West Seattle with plenty of room for guests, so let us know when you need a rain soaked, gray and chilly vacation! I know you prefer to visit us in San Diego, but we all know that it is our sunny faces that you want to visit, not the place we live, right? Right? Hello?

PHEW! We made it! Or more accurately, they made it to one year without us killing them. I can’t believe that it’s been a year since they were born. All I can say is that this past years has been the longest three years of my life. Still, what a joy they are. They are so curious and busy and cute and quite funny as you can see from the video above—which is our gift to you for their birthday. They both stand on their own until they notice they’re standing, and then they fall. They have grown so much from the tiny creatures they were when they were born. We’re taking them to the doctor next week and we’ll get their stats and let you know, but compare them to this picture.

Tiny newborns

Noah and Jesse have begun to play together and they are now very much aware of the other. The way they make each other laugh is great, and they are such boys with all the wrestling and head-butting. Click through for more photos and video.

They know what the good toys are

Smiles!